cave whither she had retired displeased; and a divine ancestress of the Imperial house. At the Gekūsan they are Ninigi-no-mikoto, grandson to the Sun-Goddess and ancestor of the Mikado, and two deities who accompanied him when he descended from heaven to rule over the earth, that is, Japan.
Of the lesser temples nothing is said in the guide-book, because next to nothing was known about them. Even the custodians themselves are not aware of all they guard, though they know sufficient to have put any one who had had knowledge of Shintō's esoteric side upon the discovery. But this side, as we have seen, was not suspected.
Now, it happened in the course of my visit that, under the guidance of the priests, we came through the wood upon one of the two smaller temples, and I asked them what it was called. Ara-mi-tama-no-miya, they answered, the Temple of the Rough-August-Soul. Having some acquaintance with the ways of the gods, I began to suspect, only to have my suspicions verified. The Rough-August-Soul turned out to be the rough spirit of the Sun-goddess,—not her usual spirit, they explained, but her spirit when
